On November 5th, 2014, alumni, students, donors and parents gathered in Pointe Claire to celebrate undergraduate research in Science, Engineering, and Agriculture and Environmental Science. This special event strengthened McGill’s ties to the West Island and more importantly, to its students.

Professor David N. Harpp is the Sir William Macdonald Professor of Chemistry and holds the Tomlinson Chair of Science Education at McGill University. During his over 40 years with the Faculty of Science, he calculates he has taught over 50,000 students and supervised 33 graduate students.

Students and visitors to McGill’s downtown campus in the early 1960s will remember a massive building site at the corner of Sherbrooke and University Avenue – the new Otto Maass Chemisty Building was under construction.

Here are a few trivia questions to test your wits. The answers can be found in this newsletter. Take a moment to respond, and then check the answers page to see how you did.
1) What is the name of the McGill Bird Mascot shown here?

2) Where does the “nano” in nanoscience come from?

3) The atmosphere is vitally important to climate. What is the other major factor?

In these challenging economic times, it can be hard for science students to know what their next step should be after graduation. For some, unorthodox career choices have paid off handsomely. AND THEN? looks at how McGill alumni took unexpected paths to long-term success.

What is the weather going to be like tomorrow? This winter? How about ten years from now? How serious are the threats posed by climate change, and what, if anything, can we do to prepare for them? Studying these difficult questions – and educating people about possible answers — is the focus of McGill’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS).

Why do some people feel pain more than others? Why do painkillers help some people but not others? Answering these complex questions is the research focus of Dr. Jeffrey Mogil, McGill Psychology Professor and E. P. Taylor Chair in Pain Studies.

A McGill degree in geological science was the start of a very successful career in the Canadian petroleum industry for Brian Mills. Three decades after graduation, Mills is giving back to McGill in a big way with a donation that helps support undergraduate science research here.

Every science needs the right tools to move it forward. For astronomy, the crucial tool was the telescope, for biology, the microscope. Now, nanoscience — the science of the very, very small – is coming of age, thanks in part to tools developed at the McGill Nanotools Microfabrication Lab (MNM).